Battle of Crecy

The Battle of Crecy was fought on 26 August 1346, the first major land battle of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. The numerically-inferior English army inflicted a crushing defeat on a much larger French army at Crecy in Picardy, thwarting King Philip VI of France's attempt to relieve the English siege of Calais and establishing the effectiveness of the longbow as a dominant weapon on the Western European battlefield.

Background
On 12 July 1346, the 15,000-strong English army of King Edward III of England landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hogue in Normandy, northern France, razing every town in their path as they marched on the regional capital of Caen. Caen was stormed on 26 July and looted for five consecutive days, resulting in the deaths of 5,000 French civilians and soldiers. The English then marched on Paris, but he faced stiff resistance and, on 13 August, he decided to turn back north from Poissy. King Philip VI of France led an army of up to 60,000 troops in pursuit, and the 20,000-strong English met the numerically-superior French army near Crecy in Picardy.

King Philip encamped at Abbeville on 25 August and sent scouts to reconnoitre the English army, discovering that the English were waiting for his assault. That night, both kings gave suppers for their commanders. On Saturday morning, the King of France, his vassal King John of Bohemia (the Count of Luxembourg), and the high nobles of France celebrated Mass before assembling their army and preparing to assault the English army.

Battle
The English drew up in three divisions atop a hill overlooking muddy ground; their 20,000-strong army included 10,000 Welsh longbowmen under the command of King Edward's son Edward the Black Prince. The battle began with a duel between English longbowmen and French crossbowmen; the English longbows could strike more distant targets and could pierce armor, while the French crossbows were heavier and slower. The French knights then launched several disorganized uphill charges against the English lines, each of them seeking glory and charging into battle without coordination. The impromptu French attacks were repulsed with heavy losses, taking heavy losses from English longbowmen. King John of Bohemia, who was blind, had his retainers mount him on his horse and send him charging into the English line, sword in hand. He was among several nobles on the French side who were slain in the battle.

The French vanguard was led by the Count of Alencon, the Count of Blois, the Count of Flanders, the duke of Lorraine, the Count of Harcourt, the Count of Saint-Pol, the Count of Namur, the Count of Auxerre, the Count of Aumale, the Count of Sancerre, the Count of Saarbruck, and others, and Lord Charles of Bohemia deserted the army upon seeing that the battle was going poorly for the French. Eventually, the Count of Alencon and the Count of Flanders' forces reached the English longbowmen under the Prince of Wales, fighting fiercely for a long time; 200 Englishmen were slain in the ensuing melee. The French knights and squires, together with German and Savoyard soldiers, broke through the Prince of Wales' archers and engaged his men-at-arms in battle; Sirs Reginald Cobham and John Chandos distinguished themselves in the ensuing melee. The Earls of Northampton and Arundel then supported the Prince's division against the French, and they then asked King Edward for reinforcements. Sir Thomas of Norwich reported this to the King, who was pleased that his son had the opportunity to "win his spurs"; he refused to send reinforcements, instead ordering his nobles to place their faith in his son. The nobles were greatly heartened and continued to fight with determination, holding their ground.

In the evening, King Philip and the five remaining lords in his army (Sir John of Hainault and the Lords of Montmorency, Beaujeau, Aubigny, and Montsault) retreated to the castle of La Broye. The King and his nobles had drinks at the castle before retreating again at midnight, further retreating to Amiens, where the King decided to halt until he could discover the fate of his army. Between 1,542 and 4,000 French nobles and several more common infantry had been slain at Crecy, but the English neglected to mount a pursuit as they did at the future Battle of Poitiers, allowing the King and his rermaining nobles to escape. English pillagers and irregulars (including knife-armed Welsh and Cornish soldiers) killed several wounded counts, barons, knights, and squired, slaughtering many Frenchmen regardless of their rank; this angered the King of England, who was unable to ransom any of the French lords.

Aftermath
The Battle of Crecy was a disaster for the French, and, on Sunday morning, the King and his marshals sent out 500 men-at-arms and 2,000 archers to search for any reassembled French troops. Levies of French townsmen from Rouen and Beuvais had set out from Abbeville and Saint-Riquier, unaware of their King's defeat the previous day, and they arrived at Crecy amid a heavy mist. They mistook the English for fellow Frenchmen and approached too close; when the English recognized them, they charged them fiercely and killed 7,000 of them in open fields or under hedges and bushes. The survivors then fled into the mist.

Shortly after, the English ran into another force under the Archbishop of Rouen and the Grand Prior of France, who had also been unaware of the defeat. This French force was also massacred, including the two leaders; no prisoners were taken for ransom. The English then killed any French soldiers who were sleeping in the area, and the number of levies from the cities and towns killed on Sunday, 27 August 1346, was four times greater than the number of the dead from the battle.